Meeting Notice
HOTARC will hold its monthly Meeting of Members at 7:00 PM on Thursday February 23,
2023 in person at the Clubhouse and via the Zoom Video Conferencing Platform. Please
check your email or the Members Only section of the website for login information.
The HOTLINE
Official Newsletter for the
Heart O’ Texas Amateur Radio Club
Waco, Texas
FEBRUARY 2023
VOLUME XLVIII, NUMBER 2
Howdy HOTARC family!
It’s been a busy month for sure with national headlines
including the Ohio train contamination disaster, and F22s
may have shot down a ham radio balloon over Canada! We
still had some freezing nights this month, but signs of
Spring are certainly everywhere!
Some good takeaways from conversations this week: how
are you prepared for infrastructure type emergencies? Do
you have a way to communicate if the power - and even
internet - is not available? Also, now everyone wants to
learn about the wonderful world of ham radio with balloons!!
We got some great input from the group last month - thank
you all for participating after the meeting.
Important! We have the Baylor Bearathon coming up in just
a month: Saturday, March 25th. We are expecting to be once again helping them this year,
providing radio communication from the various checkpoints along the race. I had a great
time helping out last year, and HIGHLY recommend you make a point to do so this year as
well. This is really a fun and great way to practice and use your radio for something useful in
real time - different from rag chewing, random contacts and checking into nets! Please sign
up to participate!
Have you checked out the YACHT youth club Saturday night at 7:00pm? We currently have
them linked to our Central Texas group of repeaters. My kids were surprised to hear how
many kids around the world were participating.
Enjoy the coming Spring!
73 and God bless, de
Seth Boren
KI5QEH
HOTARC President
HOTARC Meeting of Members
January 26, 2023
President Seth Boren KI5QEH President called the
meeting to order at 7:01PM in person and in the ZOOM
Meeting Room. Bill Feltenberger KD5UEW gave the
invocation.
President Seth Boren KI5QEH led us in the Pledge of
Allegiance. There were 12 members present and 3
visitors. John Lowe K5MTP, George Lopez AI5JE, and
Johnny Skinner K5NEP.
Bill Feltenberger KD5UEW moved and Jeb Leutwyler
KG5WHS seconded to accept the minutes of the
previous meeting as presented in the HOTLINE. Motion
carried.
Treasurer’s report: The Treasurers Report for
December 2022 as published in the HOTLINE was filed.
Committee Reports:
· ARES/RACES: New schedule published.
· Trailer Committee: Nothing to report
· Repeater Committee: No report
· Web Committee: Catching up on dues, new members
· ATV: Planning to increase Slow Scan/ATV activity.
Built an interface that will also work with Echolink and
Winlink.
· Education Committee: No report
· Public Relations: None
· Special Events: None
Unfinished Business: No unfinished business.
New Business: One new member application, George
Lopez AI5JE. Bill Feltenberger KD5UEW moved to
accept the new member application. Jeb Leutwyler
KG5WHS seconded. Motion carried unanimously.
Meeting Adjournment: President Seth Boren KI5QEH
adjourned the meeting at 7:16pm.
After meeting: Discussed goals for the upcoming year.
Submitted by Mike Davis NA5X
HOTARC Secretary
The Treasurer’s Report
January 31, 2023
Starting Balance January 1, 2023 11,369.14$
Income
Full Membership Dues Paypal @ 5 150.00$
Total received 150.00$
Total Income 150.00$
Expenses
Parts replacement at tower 1/9/2023
750.64$
Paypal Fee 1/28/2023 5.45$
Total Expenses 756.09$
Ending Balance 10,763.05$
Includes FF 330.61$
Flower Fund Total
330.61$
Submitted by
Bill Feltenberger
KD5UEW
Heart o' Texas Amateur Radio Club
Treasurers Report:
McLennan County A.R.E.S.
by Paul Collins KG5DHS
McLennan County Emergency Coordinator
Hi HOTARC!
I went out his morning and out first daffodil was
already blooming. Looks like we are transitioning
from winter to spring. Even though we are still in a
drought, it won't be long until we start having
severe weather again!
Thank you to everyone for participating in ARES
and for being available for training nets and
severe weather outbreaks!
As always, the ARES team is ready to deploy if
needed. Thanks to everyone who is part of the
team.
If you are interested in becoming a member of
McLennan County
ARES, go to the
HOTARC Web site
under the frequently
asked questions and
download the
application. E-mail or
mail the completed
application according to
the instructions listed at
the bottom of the
application. Your
application will be processed and you will receive
an ARES ID Card As always, the ARES team is
ready to deploy if needed. Thanks to everyone
who is part of the team!
If you are interested in becoming a member of
McLennan County ARES, go to the HOTARC Web
site under the frequently asked questions and
download the application. E-mail or mail the
completed application according to the instructions
listed at the bottom of the application. Your
application will be processed and you will receive
an ARES ID Card. Check in to the Weekly
McLennan County ARES net every Monday at 8:00
PM on the 145.15 repeater (tone 123.0). If you
have a sincere desire to help, registration is
necessary before the next emergency, not after it
occurs. We are also beginning to include our 70 cm
repeater 442.875 MHz (input at +5.0 MHz, tone 123
Hz). Check in to the Weekly McLennan County
ARES net every Monday at 8:00 PM on the 145.15
repeater (tone 123.0). If you have a sincere desire
to help, registration is necessary before the next
emergency, not after it occurs. We are also
beginning to include our 70 cm repeater 442.875
MHz (input at +5.0 MHz, tone 123 Hz).
Winter Field Day 2023 After Action Report
by Mike Davis
NA5X
I was a little more prepared for Winter Field Day this year,
mostly because I knew about it and didn’t just stumple upon it.
I ended up waiting until Saturday morning to head out since it
didn’t officially start until afternoon. My initial plan was to use
the SuperAntenna but it hasn’t functioned properly since
summer Field Day. I think it must have taken a tumble off the
club trailer when we were trying to troubleshoot cables that
final Sunday morning. SWR is just all over the place. I need to
send it in for a check. Nevertheless, I had my EFHW matching
box with me and some wire I had found in the garage so that’s
what I ended up with. My radio was the IC-705 with my AH-
705 tuner. I had a laptop but ran into connection issues. More
on that in a bit. It was all powered, save for the laptop, with the
Jackery Explorer 240.
I ran the antenna as a sloper oriented East/West mostly because
our cabin sits high on a hill. I neglected to bring a push up pole so
I ran it into a tree down the hill. I was able to hit either coast, so
I’m pretty happy with the performance. The radio was powered
using the 12v lighter plug on the Jackery so I could run the full
10W. Again, I’m pretty happy with the performance at both 5W
and 10W on SSB. It takes a lot of work to break through a pile up
but persistence pays off.
KM4ACK had issued an APRS/Winlink challenge that I had hoped to participate in. I had sent the intial message over
APRS from the mobile radio. When I went to pull info down from Winlink on the 705, anytime the computer keyed the
radio the USB would disconnect. I had several different cables and tried them all to no avail. I tried VaraAC and even
tried an FT8 connection with the same results; so the laptop became for logging only. After returning home, I tried to
duplicate the issue, the exact same setup save for the antenna, I just used a dummy load, and I could not recreate the
problem. I’m not sure how to handle that going forward except maybe a spare laptop.
All told, I ended up with about 27 QSOs over five hours
on Saturday and just about an hour on Sunday with
most of them on 20M. The Jackery was still at 84%
battery when I shut down the station so that’s pretty
good. My contacts were mostly across the middle of the
country as far as N-S goes as you can see by the map.
I hit bot Hawaii and a Canadian station just outside of
Niagra Falls.
Over all, I found the weekend to be successful. To me,
that means I learned something, I had fun, and I got to
play radio. I went in to the weekend with a question Bill
had asked about being able to deploy in an emergency.
I believe I answered that night that I was prepared. I
don’t think I am there yet. Without the SuperAntenna, I
didn’t have VHF and HF capability with the radio. And
the connection failure took Winlink out of my toolbox. I’ll
keep working at it and eventually come up with a
working solution.
The HOTLINE is the monthly newsletter of the Heart O’ Texas Amateur Radio Club (HOTARC), Inc., a nonprofit corporation, chartered by the State of Texas and
principally located in Waco. It is permissible to use any of the original material contained herein provided proper credit is given to the source.
Edited and Published by Mike Davis NA5X, mike@na5x.com
HOTARC 2023 Board of Directors
President: Seth Boren, KI5QEH
President@hotarc.org
Vice Pres: Paul Collins, KG5DHS
VicePres@hotarc.org
Secretary: Mike Davis, NA5X
Secretary@hotarc.org
Treasurer: Bill Feltenberger, KD5UEW
Treasurer@hotarc.org
Past-Pres.: Jeb Leutwyler, KG5WHS
PastPres@hotarc.org
Director (2025): Jason Fedlam, KQ5UX
Director1@hotarc.org
Director (2024): Barbara Leutwyler,
Director3@hotarc.org
Director (2023): Drew Dickenson, KE5UBO
Director2@hotarc.org
Club Repeaters
145.15 MHz (input at –600 kHz, tone 123 Hz)
146.98 MHz (input at –600 kHz, D-Star)
442.875 MHz (input at +5.0 MHz, tone 123 Hz)